Mass readings for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Isaiah 66.10-14 Psalm 66.1-7, 16, 20 Galatians 6.14-18 Luke 10.1-12, 17-20
The harvest is great but the labourers are few. Well, we’ve heard that before. Now comes father’s appeal for volunteers to run the Christmas Bazaar. Right? Am I right?
I don’t think that’s what Jesus is talking about. I’m sure you agree, but there is indeed a call for us all to step up, roll up our sleeves and get to work in the fields of the Lord, but what does that actually entail?
And because I’ve been around long enough, I’ve seen many a prior attempt to actually come up with some kind of description of that call to go labour in the fields is. And frankly, it usually amounts to an appeal for money to pay for a youth worker, a pastoral worker, to pay for someone else to go out and do the labouring. It’s also been an appeal to pay for the pastor to go on parish development seminars, to conferences on church renewal, and so on. And, of course, volunteers for the next social event, the next fundraiser.
Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of that was good stuff, but that really doesn’t appear to reflect Jesus’ apparent call for “all hands on deck”, you know, “we’ve got a situation here people and I’m going to need all of you to give 110 percent.”
What are we all being called to do, that indeed, we can all do?
Well, let’s think on these images of gathering in of people, of bringing them successfully into relationship with God. We are to be fishers of people; so, there’s that idea of going out there on metaphoric seas of today’s culture and snatching them up as in a net. We have today’s imagery of the wheat field, and out we are to go with scythes, cutting and gathering into sheaves all those folks just waiting for us to hack them down and carry them off. We are like shepherds who go searching for the one lost little lamb; but boy, it’s not just one. The lost sheep outnumber the flock we have. That was true in Jesus’ day as it is now.
I’m not mocking our Lord here, but I think we need to not always be so literal in our interpretations, not so bound by the mechanics of the metaphor as to miss the point: we are the means by which Christ gathers in the lost. But what is the means by which we catch these fish, come to harvest the ears of wheat, coax the frightened lamb from its hiding place back toward the protection of the flock?
Now, not to alarm you, but the clergy have been meeting.
And two items were identified through a survey of priests, of pastoral ministers (that is the lay people who are our youth workers, liturgy leaders, pastoral assistants, and so on). So, all the frontline people as it were.
What’s our problem? And what ought to be our priority?
The answer came back, and two issues emerged above all others, two areas of priority identified unambiguously by the people who are in most direct contact with the laity, who hear the gripes, the complaints, the suggestions, and the questions as to why are we not doing something; or why we have done something that doesn’t appear to be particularly effective.
Number one issue: We have a problem with our liturgy as a Church. And to be clear on this, it wasn’t seen as a matter of the texts, the missal, the Novus Ordo, the mass developed in the aftermath of Vatican II. It was how we were worshiping as a community. How reverence had been lost, how priests were being more than a little sloppy in how we did things, how the people had lost their sense of God’s presence in the liturgy, in the sacraments; how we’d all given up so much in the name of progress, that the tradition that ought to inform all that we do was a fading memory soon to be lost, and then our worship would soon be hollow, lifeless, an acting out of prayer, but no longer prayer.
Now, I don’t want to get into who is to blame. Trust me, I’ve heard many of you, many in other parishes offer their opinion on the matter. We must be reconciled with the mistakes of the past, the missteps, and begin to restore the liturgy; and not by doing it in Latin, but by recovering our sense of mystery, recapturing the awe, the excitement and the glory that is Catholic worship done well.
That is a hook that can catch the fish, a net that can pull them in, it is seed well planted that will render the harvest we pray for.
As Auxiliary Bishop Lobsinger said at a recent gathering, this is what we do that no one else does. You can’t get liturgy at Fortino’s, you can’t get it at the ballpark, even as people try to bring ritual and pseudo-worship to sporting events.
But if they come to a parish church, to pray, to worship, that is what they must experience, worship in holiness, prayer that sanctifies. Because if they come to find a lifeless gathering mumbling the prayers, moving their mouths to the words of hymns no one finds particularly uplifting, but rather stale, saccharine in sentiment, and theologically incoherent… well, they won’t be back.
And this is the work we do together, as clergy, altar servers, lectors, choristers, cantors, eucharistic ministers, ushers, vergers, porters, and first and foremost, as being here in any capacity, even that of the simple worshiper in his pew. To lift up your voice with others, to chant, to sing, to pray as our Lord taught us, to do this together, and to do it well, this is the stuff that attracts the fish, makes the stalks of wheat to grow, wheedles the frightened sheep from its hiding place and has it run into the good shepherd’s arms.
The second priority was catechism. Learning the faith, knowing the faith, teaching the faith.
We must be teachers; all of us. Not just the retired teachers who are our valued brothers and sisters. Sometimes, and I remember this quite clearly, teachers don’t make the best catechists. Not because they can’t follow a curriculum, but because the pedagogical methods for imparting lessons in math or English literature aren’t always best for leading an inquiring soul into the mysteries of the faith.
And often the most effective member of a catechism team is not the one with the Ph.D who can explain the Christological controversies of the first seven ecumenical councils of the Church, but it’s the parishioner who makes the tea, and serves out the biscuits and shares the stories of his faith journey.
The person transformed in Christ, who can relate that personal change, she is the net, he is sun and rain upon the growing wheat, she is the gentle hands that pick up the frightened lamb.
This is all to say, we need everyone, but each must be prepared, in humility, to find their place and in joy fulfil their role because this is what will please our God.
In coming days, weeks, in anticipation of the parish pastoral year starting in mid-September, I will be meeting, talking with people, developing plans, but also readying appeals.
I won’t lie to you. There’s bound to be some asking after money, but my conviction here is that money from you will not bait the hook. It is you yourselves, because you are Christ’s body, his hands and feet, his eyes, his ears in this world, and it is through you that he can reach out, draw the lost to himself, and restore them to God our Father as sons and daughters, as our brothers and sisters in Christ.
So, as we spend our time in leisure in the coming weeks, pray on what I’ve said. Pray that however inept my words, that the Holy Spirit might still reach you through them, to speak to your heart, and summon you to your place in the fields, but not as the few, but as many.
Amen.